Cristian Laime: The Painter Who ‘Indianizes’ Art History – “We Must Reflect on Our Past to Capture Our Present”

The painter Cristian Laime (36 years old) inevitably associates his childhood with Lake Titicaca, the largest in South America. The town where he was born, Carabuco (La Paz, Bolivia), on the shores of this ancient body of water, offered him privileged views. As well as an unconscious mysticism exuded by the lake, nearly 4,000 meters above sea level, a ceremonial center for the past 2,000 years: first for the Tiwanaku people, and later, and to this day, for the Aymara. Therefore, when he copied portraits from the Dutch Golden Age or sacred scenes from the Renaissance at the Academy of Fine Arts in La Paz, he naturally included coca leaves, colorful shawls, or traditional skirts. His reinterpretation of art history with indigenous hands—turning his work into something as Bolivian as it is universal—has made him one of the most renowned Andean artists today.

“I seek to portray our time from our place. In that process, the inevitable need to contemplate our past arises,” the artist explains to Adolfo Kunjuk News at the Patiño Foundation in Cochabamba. He has just inaugurated the exhibit Memory, available until June 27. It is his first major event of the year, after opening six exhibitions in four cities during 2024, a season that closed with the distinction of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters awarded by the French Embassy. This 2025 still awaits the premiere of his documentary Cristian Laime 3868 and a solo exhibition in Hamburg, featuring works on the facades of cholets, uniquely designed buildings in El Alto, the city where he currently lives. “I have only been dedicating myself to art full-time for five years. I believe my career is just beginning,” he states.

The fusion of Aymara identity elements with surrealistic atmospheres at times, or baroque ones at others, has sparked the interest of collectors in Peru and Mexico, as well as in France and the United States. In his canvases, the apostles of The Last Supper give way to cholas—indigenous women from the Quechua and Aymara cultures who maintain their traditional clothing—celebrating a preste, the community festivities of El Alto; the characteristic cherubs of the baroque flutter among aguayos; and the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Heart is actually a peasant wrapped in coca leaves. Regarding this last motif, captured in the painting Mother Coca (2024), Laime explains: “It is a syncretism that has been occurring since colonial times. The Incas associated the Virgin Mary with Mother Earth, Pachamama.”

The painter from La Paz has a global yet specific view of the past, analyzing the history of Bolivia with sarcasm and sharpness. Memory welcomes the spectator with a series of paintings that reference official portraits of 19th-century presidents, when caudillista governments proliferated, often with mandates lasting less than six months. However, Laime depicts them with feminine Aymara or Quechua elements, such as braids and bowler hats. “I emphasize the fact that, until a certain point in the country’s history, the indigenous side was denied: all the presidents were from the elites.”

Devotion to the Mother

In another of these paintings, a chola from La Paz, dressed in shoulder pads from an old military uniform and a police hat, sternly observes the spectator. “These are traditionally male-assigned jobs. I like to break those gender molds: feminine outfits on very masculine men, or vice versa.” Laime portrays urban indigenous women as heroes of the republic, guerrilla fighters, or heads of state. The model appearing in 80% of his paintings since 2020, according to the artist himself, is his mother. In fact, he has not had another female model in the flesh and blood besides her.

The painter from La Paz is the only child of a single mother, who was “a miner, a merchant, both mother and father,” he highlights. “We developed such a deep connection that I developed a phobia of solitude, meaning her absence. During the pandemic, the only two human beings in my house were her and me, so I began to portray her. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to technically capture her image; I didn’t trust myself much. Now I feel that I have managed to portray her, and that releases something within me.” He states that his mother, Amalia Yujra, is happy with the result, that her face has traveled the world.

Laime recounts that he always felt supported by her, despite the fact that the art market in Bolivia depends greatly on foreign purchases. His first works were created in primary school, copying drawings from his textbooks. “I charged my friends to do their homework for Plastic Arts. Everyone found out, and I ended up doing them for other courses as well. In the year-end exhibition at school, 90% of the pieces were my paintings,” he laughs. His vocation was clear, and he studied at the Hernando Siles Academy of Fine Arts in La Paz, as well as obtaining a degree in Plastic Arts from the Public University of El Alto (UPEA).

Art with Meaning

During his training, one of his professors was the contemporary artist Gastón Ugalde. He passed away in 2023 at 79 years old and was one of the most important plastic creators in the second half of the 20th century in Bolivia. His work had a strong political character, with critiques of the military regime of the 1970s and early 1980s. He was interested in his student’s work and recruited him as a part-time assistant in his studio. “He made me realize that art is not only a technical pursuit, but also a conceptual one (…) for me, art with meaning is important.” A showcase of this social line is the oil painting National Anthem, General Chorus (2018), which won the Grand Prize at the Pedro Domingo Murillo Salon— the oldest and most prestigious contest in the country—awarding him about $6,000.

That artistic and economic recognition propelled his career: “Until that moment, I had vocational doubts and questioned whether I could live from art.” The canvas, over two meters high, depicts a demonstration during the well-known gas war of 2003, rejecting the export of gas resources to Chilean and American companies. Clashes between demonstrators—mostly residents of El Alto—and military forces left around 67 civilians dead.

Another piece in this line is an allegorical portrait of Evo Morales, exhibited in 2019 at the Tambo Quirquincho. In the current exhibition, he continues this critique of power with Scrutinium (2025). This large-format oil painting shows a group of rats taking off the presidential medal. They are scattered around the chair that will be battled over by 10 candidates in the presidential elections on August 17. It was one of the most photographed pieces during the inauguration, symbolizing what is to come: crucial elections in which a large part of the population places its hopes to overcome the profound economic crisis in which the country finds itself. “There is a general pessimism about the future, about the possibility that the leaders we have to choose won’t be the most suitable. It is an acquired right for artists to portray the collective sentiment.”